Thursday, April 23, 2009

The idea of an independent has arrived……..

The Association for Democratic Reform associate Ajit Ranade has reasonable questions like why there is no single law that regulate or governs Indian political parties. Ajit writes in the today’s TOI:

“Our democracy functions through parties, but our parties themselves do not function democratically.

We need a comprehensive law to regulate the functioning and funding of parties. We need to enforce inner party democracy, transparency in finances and criteria for entry and advancement. Until then we have to depend on the voice of the lone independent, both from within or outside parties who will make sure that the script returns to genuine democratic dialogue.”

Indeed, our current home minister P Chidambaram wrote in his article in the Indian Express which was published later in book form. He said “…what we need is comprehensive law to regulate political parties just as we have a companies Act to regulate the affairs of companies we must have a law that will lay down detailed rules to govern the functioning of political parties” (p. 280).

After writing this he was in UPA government for five years but he could not do anything on this idea. Because no political party is willing to buy his ideas and result is all they wanted to make is fool of people and the business community.